Month: January 2026

Even if I had brought my trainers, I would not go running in the snow this morning. I could have done a workout in the gym, but nnot without trainers.

Coffee and abundant hot breakfast, including a waffle.

We had a glorious time last night at the rehearsal and dinner — seeing Lee for the first time in ages, and catching up with Nick (whom we saw more recently) and David (last November), meeting A-C Noël for the first time, and then seeing Teresa for the first time in even longer than Lee… What a great day this afternoon’s wedding will be!

Margaret and I are established in place to attend Nick’s wedding tomorrow (rehearsal dinner tonight), though we’re pretty spaced out from the travel (and travel-related) complications we’ve endured. Nothing terrible, just intermittent hiccoughs and disconnections and moments (intervals) of perplexity.

The weather’s as cold as we expected, and there’s snow lying (not as delightful to Margaret as fresh snow, but faute de mieux. We have a brief bank errand this morning, then will do some walking, come back for doing long-distance work a nap, and then pull ouselves together before dinner.

No run (just didn’t sleep well at all), no energy, no concentration, so no substantive blog. But at least I remembered to check in.

     I went out drinking with Thomas Paine
     He said that all revolutions are not the same
     They’re as different as the cultures that give them birth
     For no one idea can solve every problem on earth

Chris asks how I teach writing, and my answer, as Thomas Paine’s is that all writing exercises are not the same. I’ve taught in a workshop setting, in a lecture setting, in a one-off pre-degree induction, in end-of-term revisions, and (most often) just working with individual students who want to learn to write better. In almost every case, motivated students want to learn to write deliberately, rather than just extruding verbiage; but very often they arrive at university having learned how to do well at extruding verbiage that includes items for which they get marks. And the higher marks they’ve gotten, the more firmly they’ve internalised the notion that writing = extrusion rather than rhetorical craft. In the current cultural economy, writing for pertinent points (‘perts’ in the HE argot of one niche I’ve inhabited) corresponds closely to writing for ‘likes’ or reskeets/retweets, so the extrusion model remains in place.

In this way, writing can seem like a kind of therapy. ‘What do you really want (to say)?’ ‘OK, what did you write? What does that mean? If you wanted to say this, why did you write that?’ ‘Why not just write what you just told me?’

Again, baby steps: I implore them to prefer active, colourful verbs, rather than lazily saying ‘This is that. That is the other. This is another other. So this is that.’ Using an active verb requires that you choose the verb that expresses what you think, rather than just stating stuff. ‘Lincoln argues that…’ ‘Campbell points out that… but many critics insist…’ Multiple wins in just this simple exercise: stronger preference for active constructions vs copulative or passive constructions, words that indicate something more specific than just existence, greater vigour and flavour to the prose.

I do not inveigh against passive constructions simpliciter; I point out reasons one might want to use a passive construction, and suggest the value and weakness of such constructions. Again, choose whether to use active or passive (or copulative) clauses.

I press them on the question of structure — having a sense of how the bits fit together into a whole. Some essays are like narratives of discovery, like Sherlock Holmes stories. These have the advantage that, when done well, they bring the reader along toward a satisfying conclusion; done less well, they allow the reader to anticipate a conclusion toward which the author isn’t driving, and to find the experience frustrating and entirely unsatisfactory. Others are more like the deprecated five-paragraph essay. This has the advantage of communicating to the reader what is at stake right from the start, and the reasons for the conclusion, but (as Cory and Chris note) risks being deadly dull. The important thing is to adopt a structure deliberately, and to keep vigilant attention to how a reader will probably construe one’s rhetoric.

Structure depends not just on building blocks, but also (especially) on transitions, from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph. An essay that handles transitions skilfully does lots of the work just in that careful composition.

For academic purposes, precision makes a huge difference. Write exactly what you want to write, so as to convey to the reader just what you want them to perceive.

Avoid lazy expressions. The intensifier du jour ‘incredibly’ has hardly any value in an academic essay in biblical studies. A student doesn’t need to tell examiners that ‘X or Y is incredibly important’; that either seems clear to us, in which case the intensifier adds nothing, or we doubt the importance of the matter, in which case‘incredibly’ rubs salt in an already irritated… uh, ‘paper cut’.

And more — but that’s all I have time for this morning, as a starter. Each composition is not the same; they’re as different as the student writers who give them birth, for no one approach will solve all the problems on earth.

(No running this morning; rainy day. Coffee and fruit, cleaned up, Morning Prayer, in to Oxford for a tutorial (with a stop at Love Coffee between arrival and tute), lunch, then back to Abingdon for sermon writing in the afternoon.

I’m clearing email and other small obligations today in the run-up to our godson Nick’s wedding next weekend. I was to lead a preaching workshop later, but the enrolment was small, and there were mix-ups on the administrative side, so that block of time went by the boards. I received the tutorial essay I’ll discuss tomorrow, so I’ll mark and comment on that. And I have the pesky ‘Candlemas’ cover blurb to write for the parish newsletter.

That’s a day’s worth in these parts.

Oh, I forgot: I ran this morning, at mostly the same pace as yesterday. And I found, buried in the data from the series of one-minute ‘force training’ workouts, the time of a sort of über-workout that was the run, so I entered that in my spreadsheet. Still more like treacle than mercury, but at least I’m doing it. The morning fog looked striking in the light of my headlamp.

Morning run came in at a time much closer to what I’d become accustomed to — still not near my previous plateau pace, but a big step in the right direction. Then I made myself a hot breakfast while Margaret prepared to go to Headington for a visit, while I showered, dressed, said Morning Prayer and oversaw the ladies.

I left to meet Margaret at noon (so, an hour-long bus excursion) where we looked at our first ever prospective new home. That is: The first time we ever had a choice of home, such that we might say, ‘No, smells musty and damp, would require total renovation, and too close to nearby truck traffic’ or ‘Oh, how splendid! Yes, we’ll have it!’ We anticipate spending the rest of our lives (deo volente) in our new digs, so we want to be confident that the place we choose will suit our evening, sunset, and twilight years. Today’s candidate was located perfectly and was affordable, but it also would have needed a total renovation, and Margaret wasn’t comfortable with whether the dogs would like it. I’m not ruling it out, but we’re going to continue looking at other houses in the area.

My time was off this morning, since I couldn’t get to the timer button at the end of my run, but I’m sure it was slower than usual, even the past few days. I suspect my ankle is weaker than before, and that over all I’m not in fighting trim (though I have finally managed to shed my holiday weight gains). Further, I have been having sleep interruptions, and am less well-rested (I’ve been testy and had trouble focusing), which presumably affects my energy level even first thing in the morning.

Anyway — fruit and coffee, shower, Morning Prayer, (heaven allowing) some effective writing, then into Oxford for the New Testament seminar.

Earlier I mentioned posts by Chris and Cory on writing, and I indicated that I had some pushback and a different idea (among other things). I’m going to resist the temptation to expatiate and go straight to the tl;dr version of my thoughts.

First, I object to the almost universal derogation of the five-paragraph essay — not because I think it’s a good genre in itself, but because it’s a useful introduction to the idea that essays might have any structure whatsoever. I’ve read more essays than I care to remember that amount just to ‘Here’s a bunch of things I read about blurgh!’ with a stream-of-semiconsciousness (lack of) structure and no real thesis except ‘so give me a good mark’. [Now, at this point I should apologise for the dull or tendentious or unimaginative writing that characterises most of the secondary sources in my field; I can’t find fault with anyone whose heart sinks at reading many of the essays, articles, and even books in biblical studies.] For these and for essay-writers who have never really been asked to write anything more complicated than a book report, learning to articulate a thesis; present more than one reason, one bit of evidence for affirming it; identify maybe one drawback to the thesis, and the essayist’s grounds for overriding it; and concluding the whole thing in a way that sums up what has gone before — for such writers, a five paragraph essay can be a revelation. It’s not a goal, it’s a ****ing ladder.

By all means, move on from there to the superior modes of writing Cory advocates. And maybe there are prodigies who can vault over the bottom rung of the ladder. I myself spent five years, maybe more, in HE trying to write like the essayists I admired before my father (a veteran teacher of composition) drew me aside and showed me how his variation on the 5PE could help me clarify my writing and communicate my points more effectively. I was thunderstruck — how had I been getting good marks before, without knowing this? (Huge vocabulary, and high style; when one of the secondary-school teachers suspected [without evidence other than my diction] that I had copied a passage in one of my essays, my teacher from the previous year sent her a note reminding her, ‘Not only does he write like that, he talks like that.’ But it wasn’t till interventions from my father (during my masters-degree studies) and a leader of composition classes (during my doctoral studies) that the penny dropped on how important structure and explicit argument are to good writing. I’d like to help my students attain that satori sooner than I did.

If all they went on to write were conventional 5PEs, that would be disappointing. But one lesson of learning to write a 5PE is that one can control the flow of discourse so as to bring a reader along to buy in to the argument. And once you see an essay as an exercise in persuasion, in seduction, perhaps even in tricking a suspicious reader into agreeing despite themself, vast fresh horizons open up. But I find that way, way, easier once students understand so basic a genre as the 5PE.

My morning run successfully avoided the rain that had been falling and the rain that is to come, and on the whole it felt pretty good — various joints and muscles were stiff and reluctant, but in the way they often are when you’ve been getting good exercise. But when I checked my timer, I had run even slower than either of the last two days (though really, they’re all very close). It would dishearten me if I forgot my mantra, that the point is doing it, not setting new personal bests every week. Coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, public office hours at R&R, probably a mild pass through Waitrose to restock vegan Magnums for the Empress of my heart. Write, write, write (all for parish purposes, nothing academic at the moment).

Pippa has decided to add to her excellences by learning to play the saxophone, and has been sending us the fruits of her lessons via video clips. This reminded me (via our shared love of David Bowie) of the sax solo on ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, which he did not perform — that was Ronnie Ross, his own teacher — and stuck ‘Walk’ in my memory. All of which leads me to ask:

How is it that we’re currently beset by anti-trans vitriol nowadays, when back in the early 70s, AM radio stations played Lou Reed often enough that ‘Wild’ hit the Top Twenty, for heaven’s sake? Yes, Reed portrayed Holly and Candy in a demimondaine culture, but between Reed and the Kinks’ ‘Lola’ (1970! Number 2 here and #9 in the US!) trans identity occupied a prominent place in the cultural thesaurus fifty years ago. (AKMA waves his cane in the air agitatedly.) Add to these Christine Jorgensen, Myra Breckinridge, and mainstream culture was well acquainted with trans issues decades before the current wave of hysteria.

I’m no hero of the revolution — I’m a staidly cis-, hetero- guy, and I don’t get either gender dysphoria or same-sex attraction. I can’t claim to know what my dear ones are feeling, except to the extent that I am acquainted with the ineradicable sense of belonging outside the in-group and of not trusting the pillars of society to demonstrate more than superficial concern about the atypical aspects of who I am. That’s not a big deal, it’s not all, or even more than a little bit, about me. But since many people, maybe most people have experienced that chill at some point, under some circumstances, we must extend our sisters and brothers the consideration of making room for their greater, deeper, well-justified sense of the society around them expecting them to play a right-handed game with their left hand.

Hey, babes — take a walk on the wild side. (It’s not that wild, honestly.) Alright.

An annoying run this morning, in that I was trying to pick up the pace a little from yesterday, but ended up taking almost exactly the same time (though five seconds of that time was spent waiting for traffic at the Drayton Road and Ock Street). But no aches or pains, no gsping or wheezing, so I’m set to push ahead. Hot breakfast with coffee, shower, Morning Prayer, now having a quick second cup of coffee at R&R, then I’ll go for a trim at my barber’s, and Chapter Meeting. After that — back to work trying to write one of the items on my to-do list.

No morning run — I may (read: ‘hope to’) take a long walk during the day to keep my daily mileage up, anyway — because I was awake late last night, had interrupted sleep, and was confronted with light rain outdoors when I did wake up. Coffee and fruit, I’ll head in for Morning Prayer in a bit and come home for reading and writing (I have a College of Preachers event to plan, a short column about Candlemas to write, and a series of short ‘inside football’ talks about doing liturgy to plan. Oh, and a sermon for Dedication Sunday at St Michael’s.

I decided to tackle a full-on morning run today, and although I am obviously not in good enough shape to resume my previous pace, I’m close enough that there’s no purpose served in delaying. So: slow morning, coffee and fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, and probably public office hours at R&R after.

For some reason, I picked up Ronald Hutton’s biography of Oliver Cromwell and began reading it a few days ago. So far it has reassured me that Cromwell was as disagreeable a person as I had reckoned. I don’t have an ambition to take up Reformation/Civil War history, but (having engaged the topic in The Last Essay) I appreciate the value of better knowing my way around. I did enjoy Hutton’s casual ‘By 23 January, Cromwell was at Cambridge, and had set about the twin tasks of godly iconoclasm and the terrorizing of suspected royalists.’ The Making of Oliver Cromwell, p. 93.

I took my morning miles at a steady, slow, jogging pace today — without interrupting to catch my breath or take a few walking steps. I wasn’t pushing at all (except just to keep going), but my time came in close to the slowest days of my running. My ankle is not back to form, but I did it, and presumably I’ll manage to claw back to form gradually.

Yesterday Rosie and BRendan brought wee Edith over for a visit. Part of the point of the visit was to introduce her to Minke and Flora, but they were a bit too much for her, so she built train tracks and played with our stock of stuffed animals, and utterly charmed us, as always. Good craic with Brendan and Rosie, lovely times.

Today I don’t have any leadership responsibilities; we’ll go to the 10:30 at St Helen’s, and then I’ll buckle down and work on some plans for weeks to come.

I combined a respect for the morning’s cold rainy weather with mercy for my ankle, and opted not to run or walk this morning. I hate skipping a day, and I may go out for groceries later, but I devoted my morning to other mundane tasks.

Sometime when I have the time and mood I want to respond to Chris’s response to Cory’s Pluralistic column on writing. As someone who teaches writing more or less constantly (though not usually in a class dedicated to the topic, but in trying to help students improve their essay-writing), I have a couple of bones I’d like to pick with these esteemed friends. Not so as to defy them, of course, but to think along with them….

Dave and I hate cooking up titles for every post. Sometimes there’s a natural, or clever, or just foolish title one can give, but other times all I want to do is post something, and no-o-o-o-o, it has to have a title.

I’m progressively picking up the pace of my morning run these days. Today I drew close to what would have been a slow day when I was just beginning to time my runs, even though I slowed to a walk several times when one or another joint, muscle, ligament, or tendon issued a warning. The way human anatomy tears and heals intrigues me. For several days after my fall, my left ankle hurt; then it abated and my right knee hurt; then the ankle reasserted its right to ache and my knee quiesced; and this morning, my ankle hurt a bit, but the real limit came from my left knee (which had hitherto not spoken up at all). I fell only eight days ago, so of course I haven’t healed all the way yet (I’m thankful for how very rapidly my ankle and legs have bounced back). And clearly and not surprisingly, the rest of my body has issues to work out at paces that differ based both on my daily demands and the interactions among the bones and sinews that the fall affected. All interesting, all occasions for learning more. Maybe I’ll pursue a medical degree when I retire….

(That’s a joke.)

So, morning miles, coffee and fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, appointment at R&R, picked up some local cheese for Margaret at the market square, and now I’m resting my ankle and making a budget spreadsheet for our house search.

After a crowded day, a low-traffic day (appropriately, since I’m theoretically working only half-time). My walk was a bit faster than it has recently been, as I took shorter, jogging-style paces part of the way.

Got up and walked (mostly) my miles this morning. My ankle resented the amount I asked of it yesterday, so I gave it an easier start today. After coffee and hot breakfast, public office hours, and the weekly Staff Meeting I came home for lunch and handling email and perhaps beginning work on my newsletter column on The Conversion of Paul, then another meeting this evening, just for the sheer fun of it.